1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to ranking educational institutions, including programs and faculty, and more particularly to a system and method for ranking academic programs.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Various publications, organizations and individuals rank universities and graduate schools. The rankings are typically used as tools by administrators to assess the quality of their programs and universities, and by students to determine which schools and programs to make applications to.
Existing methods for ranking universities utilize census forms distributed to faculties. Faculty members rank universities and programs according to their impressions. These impressions may be based on any number of factors, including lack of information. These impressions introduce uncertainties and bias into the rankings.
The 1995 National Research Council Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs collected data on faculty publications, citations and grants. In 1997, Graham and Diamond (the Rise of the American Research University, Johns Hopkins) ranked universities based on per capita publications in top journals and per capita awards and honors in humanities fields. In 2000, Diamond and Graham (Change Magazine) ranked graduate programs and universities based on citation data from the 1995 NRC study. Such rankings may be statistically inaccurate for many comparisons.
Therefore, a need exists for a standardized system and method for ranking graduate programs.